


What Was Missing

by cynthia_arrow (thesilverarrow)



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Post-Split
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/cynthia_arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He's in the shower now, trying to knock the words out of his head. It's almost dawn, and he's so tired his body's buzzing with it. They'd left off in the middle of something, but it was the middle of something that they couldn't wrangle even after four hours of obsessing. He's been through that kind of night often enough to know it will probably come to him if he turns loose of it for a while. Apparently, it doesn't work that way for Brendon.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Was Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the making of the third album.
> 
> This was originally posted to livejournal. I'm simply archiving it here.

He didn't used to get this deep into the writing. The music, yes. He used to get so caught up in chord progressions and how to set them into a rhythm that he could feel it thrum through him when he lay down to sleep at night. But he never had much to do with the words, except maybe in policing them. He was often the fixer, which was an important and difficult job. He was rarely, if ever, the creator. That turns out to be even harder.  
  
It's not so much that words are hard, but they take a toll. He'd rather have beats worrying at him, mechanical and repetitive, than words and phrases and all the baggage they carry with them. They don't get into his blood like drumming does, but they work their way into his head, and, lately, somewhere deeper, in his heart or maybe his soul. And it's because of Brendon. He can't think of anybody else that could've gotten him to try, much less succeed.  
  
But he's in the shower now, trying to knock the words out of his head. It's almost dawn, and he's so tired his body's buzzing with it. They'd left off in the middle of something, but it was the middle of something that they couldn't wrangle even after four hours of obsessing. He's been through that kind of night often enough to know it will probably come to him if he turns loose of it for a while.   
  
Apparently, it doesn't work that way for Brendon. Spencer ought to have remembered that. During their ugliest days at the cabin, often Brendon stayed up without them and then fell asleep on the couch with a notebook clutched to his chest, having finally perfected one of Ryan's good but not quite brilliant bits of poetry. Sometimes it was just one word that changed, but it was exactly enough, and Brendon was willing to sacrifice a little sleep and more than a little sanity for it. It must be the same for him tonight, because when Spencer turns off the shower, he hears the springs on his bed squeaking.  
  
He opens the door a crack and calls out, "Bren?"  
  
From the other side of the door, Brendon says, "I think I got that funky line in the chorus worked out."  
  
Spencer's stepped out of the shower, and now he's drying off – half-assedly, because he sort of likes the idea of air cooling his damp skin.   
  
"You're supposed to be in bed," he says.   
  
"I was," Brendon replies. "I couldn't sleep. I tried."  
  
"It's been like ten minutes."  
  
"More like half an hour. You been zombie-sleep-showering again?"  
  
He glances at his watch on the counter, surprised. "I guess," he replies. "Hot water felt good on my back and shoulders."  
  
"Too much playing?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"'S'okay. Happens."  
  
A silence falls into their conversation, but by this point in their friendship they're pretty okay with those. Especially after all the talking they've already done tonight. Of course, it wasn't just talking. He's had plenty of deep conversations with Brendon before, late nights on lonely buses or high as a kite in his own living room, but it's somehow different when they're writing. And tonight was even more different still. At a certain point, he couldn't look him in the eyes anymore because he'd already done it too much. It was all too much. Maybe that's as much the reason Spencer finally came up to bed as anything.   
  
"You know," Brendon says, "it's okay if you're going to sleep. I just wanted to tell you I figured it out, the word that was missing."  
  
When he doesn't offer, Spencer says, "So...?"  
  
"I'm not telling you. It'll get your brain all stirred up again."  
  
Spencer laughs. "I can promise you I'm about to sleep like the dead, and nothing you can say will prevent that from happening."  
  
"Still, no," Brendon says, and then there's a squeak of the bedspring again, like Brendon's about to wander off.  
  
"Wait," Spencer calls out as he struggles into his boxers as fast as he can. "Seriously, Bren."   
  
When he flings open the door, Brendon's lurking in his bedroom doorway. He looks as exhausted as Spencer feels, but he hasn't gotten out of his worn-out jeans and t-shirt yet.  
  
"You so did not even try to sleep," Spencer says with a grin.   
  
Brendon smiles in reply, his whole face relaxed and sleepy. It takes Spencer a moment to realize that his eyes are lazily working him over, and it's weird -- Brendon's seen him pretty damn near naked too many times to count, but it feels different now, like he's really  _looking_  at him. For no good reason, Spencer feels a flush start on his face and chest. He has a sudden, desperate need to put a shirt on, cover up his pudgy little belly and the wicked ridiculous farmers tan he's developed from all the surfing they've been doing lately, but he can't move.   
  
When he looks up at Brendon's face again, Brendon's the one blushing, like Spencer's caught him at something. And he has, right? Brendon was looking at him, really looking. And he's still looking. Spencer can see it in his eyes, along with a whole lot of things he's occasionally noticed the shadow of before, but he'd always thought it was wishful thinking, that he'd imagined it. There's no imagining this, though. Spencer's not just blushing now, he's feeling hot all over, right down to his toes.  
  
"Hey," Spencer says.  
  
"Um." Brendon gaze finally shifts away from him, and Spencer instantly hates that confused, slightly guilty way he's staring at the hallway carpet.  
  
Spencer says, "Look at me."  
  
He turns his head, but he closes his eyes. "Spence," he says softly.  
  
He doesn't move as Spencer crosses the room, and as Spencer's stepping into place in front of him, he finally opens his eyes again, and he doesn't look away when Spencer stares into them.   
  
Up close, Brendon isn't as perfect and pretty as he looks in photographs – none of them are – but it's somehow better. He's got all these tiny freckles, and they make his smile look so warm and friendly, and his dark, dark eyes, too. His lips don't look soft so much as full, and right now he's got three or four days worth of stubble around them and down his neck. He looks kind of scruffy, but it's pretty hot. The t-shirt he's wearing is so old it's gray more than black. It used to be Spencer's, but now it fits Brendon like a glove, and it smells like him, too, spicy and familiar. Sometimes Spencer has this overwhelming urge to touch him, to really touch him, and he's pretty much decided he's not going to fight it tonight, especially now that he knows Brendon wants it, too.   
  
"I think I'm gonna kiss you," Spencer says. "Is that okay?"  
  
Brendon's nervous expression relaxes as he dissolves into quiet giggles and rolls his eyes at himself, but his arms are already twining around Spencer's neck, and the serious look hasn't quite left his eyes. He says, "You can stop treating me like I'm a scared deer or something."  
  
"How do you know I'm not the scared deer?"   
  
Brendon just shakes his head like that's impossible, like he knows Spencer, inside and out, and he obviously needs to remind him who he is. It feels a little like that, too, when he pushes up onto his toes, tilts his head up, and kisses Spencer softly on the mouth.  
  
Brendon's hands on his neck are cool and strong, and they keep changing the angle of his head so that he can kiss him deeper, more thoroughly. Spencer's body was ready to give itself up to the oblivion of sleep, and now that buzzing feeling just makes this sudden, wild arousal better. He doesn't have the energy to be tense. He just wraps his arms around Brendon's middle and holds on tight, giving himself over to how fucking good his mouth feels, and his small, tight body against Spencer's.  
  
Brendon's hands eventually come down from his neck and wander his chest, first tracing his collarbone, then one presses flat against his stomach, working its way down into his boxers. At the same time the thumb on his other hand makes a circle over his nipple.   
  
Spencer shivers and sucks in a breath, and his eyes snap open again. Brendon's smiling at him, but he doesn't waste any time in finding Spencer's mouth again with his, to suck and bite his lips. Spencer keeps expecting him to really reach in and take hold of his dick, but he doesn't, just teases lower and lower until Spencer finds himself saying, "God, please."  
  
Brendon kisses him a little too hard for a moment, like he's just as overwhelmed. Spencer's so hard it maybe hurts a little, and when Brendon's hand closes around his dick, it's almost too much. As Brendon slowly strokes his dick, their kisses turn slow and long and soft and dirty, with both of them stopping every so often to take a long breath. It's at a break like that when Brendon pulls out of his arms and drops to his knees.  
  
He's got his hands on Spencer's hips, already plucking at the elastic on his boxers, when he looks up and says, "Can I?"  
  
Spencer huffs out a slightly hysterical laugh. "Your mouth is like four inches from my dick."  
  
"Is that a  _no_?" he replies with a quirked eyebrow.  
  
"It's an  _oh my god fuck yes_."  
  
Brendon grins as he pulls Spencer's boxers up and over his dick and then down over his thighs and to the floor.  
  
Brendon doesn't take in very much of his length with his mouth, but it's enough, Brendon's full, thick lips stretched around the head, warm and wet and sucking just enough while his hand works the shaft. Brendon keeps his eyes closed while he bobs his head up and down, but when Spencer's hips begin to move, just testing, he gradually starts letting Spencer's movements carry the momentum until he's completely still, just taking what Spencer gives him. It's one of the fucking hottest things he's ever seen.  
  
He's close now, and Brendon opens his eyes again to give him a dark, hot look before he reaches up with his hand to find Spencer's. After he places Spencer's hand on his head, so he can guide him, Spencer thrusts a few more times and comes sort of helplessly with his fingers tangled in Brendon's hair.  
  
Brendon easily swallows and sucks him through it. He seems to like Spencer's hand on his head, not necessarily for some kind of kinky, hair-pulling reason, but just to have it resting there. Even after he's pulled off, Brendon stays right there for a minute, with Spencer's thumb stroking his jaw.  
  
But then Spencer finally comes out of that initial post-orgasm haze, and he says, "Get back up here. Jesus."  
  
Brendon's vibrating in his arms as he unzips his jeans and pushes down his briefs so he can get his dick out. It's not long, but it's thick, and it's already leaking just enough that Spencer doesn't have to lick his palm, just swirls his thumb around the head to spread the slickness. Brendon doesn't say anything or make any noise, only buries his face against Spencer's neck as Spencer strokes him. He's maybe a little rough about it, but Brendon seems to like that, after waiting so long.   
  
He can tell Brendon's close when he starts breathing hard in his ear and biting his neck and digging into his love handles with ragged fingernails. He's thrusting his hips forward now, making Spencer stroke him long but fast. He comes with a grunt from deep in his chest, going still all over. He lets Spencer jerk him through it even after he starts squirming at the touch, and when his hand finally comes down to stop Spencer's, he looks a little wrecked, but in a good way.   
  
He reaches behind him and tugs his shirt off by the collar, passing it to Spencer to clean up with.   
  
As soon as he does, he starts pushing at Brendon's jeans, still clinging to his hips, as he says in his ear, "Come sleep with me, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Brendon murmurs with a sleepy smile.  
  
When they climb under the covers, Spencer wraps himself around Brendon from behind, and Brendon snuggles back against him. It takes him a moment to remember they've never exactly done this before. Slept in the same bed, yes, and curled up together, but never quite like this, heartbeat to heartbeat. It's something entirely new, but it doesn't feel unfamiliar.   
  
Spencer's drifting off when he remembers.   
  
"What was the word?" he mumbles.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"You fixed the song."  
  
"Hmm. Yeah."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Pontiac."  
  
"Doesn't make any sense, dude."  
  
"Just you wait and see where I put it," he murmurs.  
  
Spencer would say something vulgar here, but Brendon's almost already asleep, and so, for that matter, is Spencer.


End file.
